F1 Weekend gara

Lewis Hamilton prevailed in a battle with Mercedes Formula 1 team-mate Valtteri Bottas to top the second free practice session for the Monaco Grand Prix.

The duo had set the pace early in the session when on medium-compound Pirellis, but Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel took top spot on his performance run on what was his second set of softs by 45 thousandths of a second.

Mercedes was one of the last teams to send its drivers out for quick runs on softs, with Bottas the first to reclaim first position with a lap of 1m11.597s.

The Finn then improved again to a 1m11.275s, before Hamilton jumped ahead with a time of 1m11.245s.

Bottas put in a 1m11.199s to move back ahead, while Hamilton paid a visit to the Ste Devote escape road after a lock-up.

But Hamilton, on his 10th lap on softs, was able to put in a time 0.081s quicker than Bottas’s best, which proved to be good enough to top the session.

Vettel, who locked up at Ste Devote with 17 minutes to go and, after just stopping short of the barrier, had to reverse to recover, held on to third place – 0.763s down.

Pierre Gasly was fourth fastest for Red Bull, less than a tenth behind Vettel, with Toro Rosso driver Alex Albon fifth on his debut Monaco F1 weekend with a lap of 1m12.031s set with 54 minutes of the session to go.

Max Verstappen looked quick, but sat out a large amount of the session after suffering a suspected water leak on his Red Bull – ending up 0.934s with his pace on a first set of softs.

He returned to the track in the closing stages and completed a further seven laps, but did not improve on his earlier time.

Haas driver Kevin Magnussen was best of the rest in seventh fastest, 1.056s off the pace, which put him just ahead of the Alfa Romeos of Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen.

Charles Leclerc, in the second Ferrari, was 10th and 1.232s down having complained about braking problems during the session.

Formula 1 championship leader Lewis Hamilton led the way in the opening Thursday practice session at the Monaco Grand Prix, beating Max Verstappen by 0.059 seconds.

Hamilton and Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas spent much of morning practice maintaining a familiar Mercedes one-two, before Verstappen slotted in between the pair in his Red Bull in the latter half of the session.

Times were tumbling down quickly in the opening half-hour as drivers got acclimatised to the street circuit, but Mercedes cars swiftly assumed the lead to sit first and second after their opening run.

While Hamilton and Bottas were closely matched at that point, with the top Ferrari of Charles Leclerc just a tenth behind, the reigning champion emerged from the pits again on the same set of softs and stretched out his lead as he fired in a 1m12.932s.

Bottas, Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel all surpassed Hamilton’s earlier benchmark as they switched to fresh softs, but Hamilton responded swiftly and was back in the lead, trading a couple of fastest laps with Bottas before ending up on a 1m12.106s.

As Mercedes and Ferrari soon switched focus to long runs, this lap time kept Hamilton top until the chequered flag flew.

But Bottas, despite being just 0.072s slower than his team-mate, was shuffled down to third by Verstappen.

The Red Bull driver went down the escape road at Mirabeau after commencing his run on fresh softs, and required help from the marshals to reverse and get going again, yet ramped up his pace after that to take an eventual second place.

Local hero Leclerc wound up as the fastest Ferrari in fourth, 0.361s off the pace but over three and a half tenths up on Vettel.

Pierre Gasly, who had narrowly avoided a crash by catching a big slide in the Swimming Pool section, moved up to sixth place with 10 minutes left on the clock yet ended up a second off Red Bull team-mate Verstappen’s pace.

Nico Hulkenberg was best of the rest behind the top three teams in seventh place, while Renault team-mate Daniel Ricciardo finished 11th.

Haas had its session compromised by a telemetry and radio issue, which forced it to request the FIA to black-flag both of its drivers on the opening run as it could not communicate with them.

Both drivers returned to the track in the final 20 minutes, with Kevin Magnussen finishing just 0.005s behind Hulkenberg in eighth, while Romain Grosjean followed Kimi Raikkonen’s Alfa Romeo in 10th.

Toro Rosso was alone in running the medium tyre in the second half of the session, and had Daniil Kvyat as its leading driver in 13th. Racing Point worked on the hard tyre late on, with Sergio Perez heading its efforts in 16th.

George Russell was the leading Williams entry in 17th, four tenths up on Robert Kubica – whose session ended with an off with just over 30 minutes to go.

Kubica spun his FW42 exiting Casino Square, and tapped the front wing against the inside barrier, subsequently returning to the pits but not reappearing after that.

McLaren was down to just one car for most of the session, with Carlos Sainz Jr sidelined with a reported electronics issue and unable to record a timed lap.

As Hamilton streaked clear of Bottas into a commanding lead, Vettel fell further back in fourth as the flat spot he picked up at the first corner proved a "pain in the arse".

He eventually let Leclerc into fourth on lap 12 of 66, and the top five held position for most of the rest of the grand prix.

The major differences at this stage were Hamilton, Bottas and Leclerc committing to a one-stop strategy but Red Bull putting Verstappen on a two-stop and an early change of tyres for Vettel giving him a second stop to make as well.

In the second half of the grand prix Vettel – on mediums – found himself bottled up behind Leclerc, who had switched to fresh hard tyres.

Ferrari deployed team orders again, this time in reverse, to briefly free up Vettel until he made his second stop with 25 laps to go.

That put him back to sixth, behind Pierre Gasly, but he made short work of the second Red Bull to regain fifth.

Verstappen’s own second stop dropped him to fourth but he was catching Leclerc and poised to retake third on fresh tyres when the safety car was deployed on lap 46.

Lando Norris tried to pass Lance Stroll on the outside into Turn 1, ran slightly deep and was still tight to the inside as the track went left for Turn 2 when Stroll turned in.

They made contact, pitching Stroll into the barriers across the gravel and leaving Norris’s McLaren too hobbled to continue.

Hamilton, Bottas and Leclerc all took the option to make a safe second pitstop under the safety car, which dropped Leclerc behind both Verstappen and Vettel again.

It took until lap 54 for racing to resume, with Hamilton keeping Bottas behind at the restart with ease and going on to win by four seconds.

Behind, Gasly attacked Leclerc for fifth place as the two Haas drivers made light contact into Turn 1 just behind them.

Gasly failed to pass Leclerc and then came under attack from Kevin Magnussen, who had got ahead of team-mate Romain Grosjean by virtue of their minor collision, but just retained the place.

Magnussen went on to finish seventh, although he was fortunate to be in position to make the overtake on his team-mate at the restart.

The Dane dropped behind Daniil Kvyat in the second stint but regained the place when Toro Rosso had a horrible double-pitstop under the safety car.

Toro Rosso appeared not to have Kvyat’s tyres ready which meant his stop was slow and held up the second car of Alex Albon, dropping him out of the points as he waited for his team-mate’s stop to end.

Kvyat fell to 10th but made it back up to ninth by the finish as Grosjean’s race worsened.

After the contact with Magnussen, Grosjean came under attack from Sainz and took to the Turn 1 run-off following a wheel-to-wheel hit.

With Sainz then into ninth, Albon sniffed an opportunity to haul himself back into the points and put Grosjean under pressure in the final laps, but could not steal 10th.

Bottas had the edge on Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton throughout qualifying, ending up a massive 0.634 seconds quicker.

None of the top four were able to improve their times on their second runs on soft Pirellis in Q3, ensuring Mercedes kept hold of the front-row lockout it had taken earlier in the final segment of qualifying.

Sebastian Vettel was third and 0.866s off the pace, less than a tenth quicker than fourth-best Max Verstappen’s Red Bull.

Charles Leclerc only had one run in Q3 thanks to having to use two sets of soft Pirellis in Q2 after compromising his first run by running wide at Campsa – also picking up some minor floor damage.

He put in two attempts on his one set of tyres, but ended up fifth and over two tenths slower than Verstappen – though he stayed ahead of the second Red Bull of Pierre Gasly.

Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen made good on the promise the upgraded Haas showed in practice by taking seventh and eighth place, with Toro Rosso driver Daniil Kvyat ninth.

Daniel Ricciardo was slowest of those in Q3 in 10th, and anyway must serve a three-place grid penalty for reversing into Kvyat in the Azerbaijan GP two weeks ago.

Lando Norris was the best of those who didn’t reach Q3 in 11th place after being bumped down a position by Leclerc’s late improvement in Q2.

Toro Rosso driver Alex Albon, like his team-mate, only had one run on fresh softs in Q2 and ended up 12th after running wide at Turn 5.

Carlos Sainz Jr made an error on what should have been his quickest lap and was 13th ahead of the lead Alfa Romeo of Kimi Raikkonen and Racing Point’s Sergio Perez.

Nico Hulkenberg was the fastest of those eliminated in Q1 in 16th place, 19 thousandths slower than team-mate Ricciardo.

Hulkenberg crashed at the Turn 4 right hander on his first run before he set a time, but was able to recover to the pits despite crunching his front wing.

He returned to the track in the closing stages and briefly lifted himself out of the dropzone with his first flying lap on the second set of options – although his pace was hindered by having switched to an older-spec front wing.

But Raikkonen then improved to push him down to 16th, with Hulkenberg finding two tenths on his second flier but not quite enough to escape.

Racing Point’s Lance Stroll was eliminated for the fifth time in five 2019 races in 17th place, two tenths faster than 18th quickest Antonio Giovinazzi’s Alfa Romeo.

George Russell won the intra-Williams battle for 19th place despite a spin out of the corner before the chicane on his first run, outpacing Robert Kubica by 1.2s after the Pole failed to improve on his second run.

But Russell will drop back to last when his five-place grid penalty for having a gearbox change due to his practice crash is applied.

Lewis Hamilton dominated final practice for the Spanish Grand Prix as a late off for George Russell prevented any final improvements ahead of Formula 1 qualifying.

Mercedes driver Hamilton enjoyed a commanding advantage over the chasing Ferraris in the session, which ended under red flags when Russell lost the rear of his Williams at the long Turn 4 right-hander and ended up in the wall backwards after travelling through the gravel.

That stopped three drivers – Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly, Renault driver Nico Hulkenberg and McLaren’s Lando Norris – completing a final new-tyre run and some from improving on a second flying lap on softs.

But it did nothing to impact the gap Hamilton had over the next-best driver, Charles Leclerc.

Hamilton’s eventual best was a 1m16.568s, more than half a second clear of the two Ferraris.

Leclerc pipped Sebastian Vettel by 0.073s, a tiny margin that was still big enough for Valtteri Bottas to slot into and steal third from Vettel.

Bottas’s session started badly when he caused a seven-minute red flag by spinning on his out-lap at the downhill Turn 5 left-hander and beaching his car in the gravel.

After the Mercedes was recovered Bottas did join the action with just under 20 minutes to go but the Friday pacesetter ended up 0.555s slower than team-mate Hamilton.

Vettel, demoted to fourth by Bottas’s improvement, had his own spin when he lost the rear mid-corner at the chicane early in the session.

He ended up only a fraction faster than the leading Haas of Romain Grosjean as the American team challenged the established frontrunners in final practice.

Grosjean believes Haas can "play" with Red Bull in Spain and his time in third practice, 0.624s off the pace and within a tenth of both Ferraris and Bottas, backed this stance up.

Kevin Magnussen also got ahead of the two Red Bulls in the second Haas, lapping sixth-fastest and 0.962s off the pace.

Max Verstappen was Red Bull’s leading man, partly thanks to Gasly being denied a final run.

Verstappen was fractionally slower than Magnussen, 0.990s behind Hamilton, but encountered traffic in the final sector of his first lap on new tyres at the end of the session.

Bottas, who also set the pace in the morning session, was fastest in the early stages when using medium-compound Pirellis, seven-tenths faster than Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel.

Vettel and team-mate Charles Leclerc then traded top spot as the first frontrunners to use the soft Pirellis, with the latter eventually winning the intra-team battle with a lap 0.088s quicker than Vettel.

But at the halfway mark of the 90-minute session, Bottas and Hamilton were out and lapping quickly on the softs.

Hamilton initially took first place with a lap of 1m17.410s, only for Bottas to eclipse it with a 1m17.284s on his first flier on softs.

Although Hamilton subsequently improved, it was not by enough and he ended up just behind his team-mate and a quarter-of-a-second faster than the lead Ferrari of Leclerc.

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, who suffered an oil leak in the first session that led to an engine change – with the spec 2 engine that was slated to be put in overnight anyway fitted – was fifth fastest and 0.750s down.

He subsequently complained of a loss of power that led to him returning to the pits after completing only 15 laps, although he did return to the track for the final 15 minutes of the session.

Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen was one of the last drivers to improve during the session, allowing him to jump from 15th to 11th, putting him just ahead of the second Toro Rosso of Alex Albon.

Lance Stroll, who crashed his Racing Point machine at the ultra-fast Campsa right-hander in the morning and drove a car without the latest aero upgrades in FP2 as a result, was 13th fastest ahead of the Renaults of Nico Hulkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo.

Lando Norris was 16th, albeit only three tenths off the top 10, ahead of the second Alfa Romeo of Antonio Giovinazzi.

Sergio Perez was 18th in the Racing Point, ahead of Williams pair George Russell and Robert Kubica – the latter duo separated by six tenths.

Kimi Raikkonen says his Alfa Romeo team was aware of the potential problem with his front wing which led to his disqualification from qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Raikkonen revealed he had a damaged front wing at the previous race in China but the team was not able to address the problem which led to the failure before this weekend’s race.

His front wing did not pass a deflection test after qualifying, which led to him being disqualified from the session.

“I don’t know what happened, I got a message this morning,” said Raikkonen. “Last race I had an issue at the end of the race with a broken stay on the front wing and we lost the downforce. So probably it is a similar thing that has caused it, unfortunately.

“We knew the issue after the last race but we didn’t have time to produce a new one so this is what you get. It surely doesn’t make us faster but this is what it is. Hopefully then it’s fair for everybody.

Raikkonen’s disqualification meant he started the race from the pits. He finished the race in tenth place. “We need to do things better a little bit better here and there,” he added.

Though a third Azerbaijan podium was never on the cards, Perez was the class of the midfield after clearing early sixth-place runner Daniil Kvyat and rarely looked like being challenged.

Carlos Sainz Jr finally opened his account for McLaren in seventh place, but only after a race-long contest with team-mate Lando Norris. That was decided in Sainz’s favour when Norris made an extra stop under the VSC.

McLaren celebrated its first double points finish of the season as Norris came home eighth, while Racing Point also got two drivers in the top 10 as Lance Stroll clinched ninth.

Kimi Raikkonen scored an unlikely point to keep his record of finishing in the top 10 every race this season, despite starting from the pitlane after his Alfa Romeo failed a front wing deflection test.

Among the four retirements were Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo, who have been summoned to the stewards over a bizarre incident in which Ricciardo reversed into Kvyat trying to get back on track after a failed overtaking attempt sent them both off at Turn 3.